Текст книги "Circle of Bones"

Автор книги: Christine Kling

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Текущая страница: 19 (всего у книги 32 страниц)

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

Îles des Saintes

March 27, 2008

8:40 p.m.

Cole sat on the bench seat of the galley dinette with his left leg stretched out straight, his foot braced against the doorway, so he wouldn’t slide off the seat as Shadow Chaser rolled in the southeasterly swell. He bit his lower lip and turned the brass plate on the green marble calendar for the hundredth time. On the table before him lay various charts of the area, the lockbox, and his father’s well-thumbed journals.

He had told the Brewster brothers that the object was a cipher disk that would give him the exact coordinates of the location of the submarine. Talk about wishful thinking. He had no idea how the thing might work. As far as he could tell, the purpose of the calendar was to learn the day of the week for any given date. First, you had to know the date – month, day and year – and then the calendar would tell you what day of the week that date fell on. As for how that could be translated into a cipher disk, he was stumped.

He thought about setting it to his own birthday, November 19, 1971 and then realized that the calendar only started in 1998, so that wouldn’t work. Most of the possible dates were in the future. Assuming his father wanted him to set it to a certain date, what date did he have in mind?

Cole turned his attention back to the books and picked up the last of the journals. He opened it to the last page and read the words there for the umpteenth time.

Dear son,

Wits end is where I am. Spent a bit of time there. Expect to be there til the end of days. Got to stop. Them. American president is part and parcel. What goes up must come down. Not a nickel to my name. It’s all yours now. Got to stop. Them. The Creoles sing a song in the islands. It’s called Fais pas do do. Like this.

Fais pas do do, Cole mon p’tit coco

Fais pas do do, tu l’auras du lolo

Yayd d’dir

Y’did yd

Jamais fais do do.

Cole had been certain since the first day he’d read this page that there was something different about it. His old man was trying to tell him something secret here, but doing it in such a way that it wouldn’t be clear to anyone who might look through the journals. Cole had tried everything to decode those words during these past months, and when he was trying to use the French Angel coin as key, nothing had worked. Not until Riley came along, that is.

Cole shook his head to try to clear it. He hadn’t been able to concentrate on the problem at hand all night. His mind kept returning to her. What was happening to her? Where was she at this moment? Had she arrived in Washington? He thought about the way she tucked her hair behind her ear, how she smelled like the orange blossoms he remembered from his childhood, and the way the light danced in her eyes when they dug up the calendar.

The calendar. Concentrate, he told himself. This blasted calendar paper weight that his father thought he would understand and yet, he had been at it most of the night, and he still had no idea what it meant or how to use it. What was the connection to the journals or Surcouf? The calendar had the names of the months written in the center, the years on the background plate, and the day names and numbers on the two plates. How did that relate to his father’s cryptic note and this odd French Creole song? Or did it relate at all? In the end, the message of the French Angel had nothing to do with this journal, other than maybe the reference to the word nickel.

He started to read the page through one more time, and he paused at the end of the second sentence. His father had used the word “time.” Wits end. Where on a calendar is wit’s end? How much time did he spend there? He wrote expect to be there until the end of days. Cole sighed and rubbed his tired eyes with both hands. The old man could never make anything easy for him. Wits end. Cole felt like he was already there. He wished he could understand what his father was trying to tell him.

“Cole,” Theo called from the bridge. “We’re approaching the bay. Do you want to take her in?”

He closed the journal, slid off the bench seat and made his way to the wheelhouse. Through the forward window, he saw Riley’s boat at anchor deep inside the moonlit bay.  Cole checked his watch: eight-thirty.

“We made good time,” he said.

“Helps to have the current and the wind on our tail.”

Cole stared at the sleek white sailboat. “Glad to see her boat looks fine.”

Theo glanced at Cole over the tops of his glasses. “It’s not her boat you’re worried about.”

“I told Riley I’d look after it. We’ll drop the hook close by. Might even raft up. There’s not much wind in here for now and it would be more secure. I’ll take her in. You go ready the anchor.”

Thirty minutes later, the Shadow Chaser was anchored with the little sailboat tied to her port side, fat fenders preventing the two hulls from bumping together. Cole stood, his forearms resting atop the bulwark, and stared down at the deck of the Bonefish. Theo appeared at his side and the mate handed him one of the frosty beer bottles he was carrying.

“How’s it going with the calendar thingy?” Theo asked.

“I don’t have a clue what to do with it. It’s got to refer to some future date.”

“Hmm,” Theo said and then he took another long pull from the beer. “Do you think that Spyder is still searching in the weeds back on Dominica?”

“I doubt it.”

“Think he’ll come after us?”

“Maybe.”

“You worried?”

“Not about him.”

“Ahhh,” Theo said, dragging the sound up and then down the scale.

The two men stood there for a long time watching the moonlight trail travel across the bay. Finally, Cole broke the silence.

“Theo, what do you think of when you hear the phrase, ‘end of days’?”

“Why?”

“I hate when you do that. You answer a question with another question. Just answer it. End of days. What does that mean to you?”

“Cole, my mama took me to church every Sunday of my childhood and I heard many preachers refer to the end time or end of days. They meant the return of Christ, you know, the second coming.”

Cole squeezed his eyes closed. “My mom never once took me to church, so excuse me if I ask some stupid questions.” He peered at Theo through slitted eyes. “But, like, is there a specific date associated with that?”

Theo laughed. “There’s more than one preacher who’s claimed to know, but no, I don’t think any of them really do.”

Cole nodded. He rubbed his hand across the stubble on his chin. “I remember there was an old Schwarzenegger movie called End of Days – a horror movie, I think – but there wasn’t a specific date given in that one either.” He stopped his hand on his throat and looking up at the morning sky, he asked, “You don’t suppose it’s the release date of that film? No, I can’t see Pops as an Arnold fan.”

“What’s this all about?”

“We have to figure out what date to set the calendar to so we can try to understand what my crazy old man is trying to tell us. I thought the answer might be in the journals – you know, on that last page with the nursery rhyme we were trying to decode. He wrote, “expect to be there until the end of days.” I don’t think it was a mistake – that he forgot to write end of my days.  He meant end of days – like it was some special date. But what date is that?”

“Well, I know of one possibility.”

Cole straightened up and turned to face Theo. “What?”

Theo didn’t look at him; he continued to stare across the water at the sailboat, a small smile on his face.

“You want to share it with me or are you just going to stand there grinning?”

“I thought I’d relax here for a bit and enjoy the moment. I know something that the brilliant Dr. Thatcher doesn’t.” Theo tipped his bottle to his lips. Before he could take a drink, his teeth clinked against the glass when Cole slapped the back of his head. Beer sloshed down onto the deck. “Hey,” Theo said. “You’re wasting perfectly good beer.”

“You don’t speak up, and I’ll be throwing you over the side next.”

“Oh captain, my captain. I was getting to it.”

“Sometime before those two morons get here?”

“All right, all right. According to the Mayas, the end of days is going to be December 21st, 2012.”

“The Mayas?”

“Yes, you know, indigenous people in South and Central America?”

“I know who the Mayas are, numb nuts, but what’s this about them and the end of days.”

“I’m surprised that a know-it-all archeologist and conspiracy buff like you doesn’t know about the Mayan Calendar.”

“Hey, I’m a discerning conspiracy buff. But this is ringing some bells. Not my specialty – I stayed away from all that Pre-Columbian stuff. But I do remember that the Mayas had some super accurate astronomical calendar. I need to get to a library – a big, decent library, not one of these dinky island places. You’re saying this thing specified a date when the world is supposed to end?”

“Yeah, it’s all the New Age rage – all over the ‘net. It seems the calendar comes to an end on the winter solstice in the year 2012. There are people who are so into this they believe your government is building underground shelters in preparation for a great celestial event on that date.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me. People believe that hooey?”

Theo sniffed. “Well, if it isn’t the crackpot calling the kettle black,” he said – and then he ducked.

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

Washington, DC 

March 28, 2008

12:18 a.m.

Riley followed Dig through the empty corridors of Reagan National as though she were in a dream. She supposed she must look like some refugee with her bare legs and the thin airline blanket draped over her shoulders, but she was too exhausted to care. She doubted whether the late night floor polishers and bathroom cleaning ladies were paying any attention to the crazy woman whose only baggage was the passport in the back pocket of her shorts.

The car waiting outside in a cloud of steaming exhaust was identical to the thousands of black Lincoln Town Cars one saw all over the city. When she stepped into the frigid winter night, Riley gasped and stopped short. Dig took her by the elbow and steered her to the car door, placing his hand on her head like a cop settling a prisoner. She sank into the soft leather, thankful the car had seat warmers. Dig covered her with another blanket, tucking the edges around her legs, and she leaned her head back to watch the city lights and the barren, leafless landscape as they drove toward the river.

She wanted to think things through, but her brain felt fuzzy. She and Cole had slept little the night before as they’d sat in the galley on his boat and poured over that chart of Dominica. Now, here it was after midnight by the digital clock on the car’s dash, and still she had not even dozed. Lack of sleep could be as debilitating as drugs or alcohol. Her brain wasn’t working right any more. Thus far, Dig had brought her to Washington. Nothing more. No secret agenda in evidence. If it turned out that he was telling the truth about her father, she would need to make plans for her father’s care, for the townhouse, for her boat back in the islands. If it turned out that he had something different in mind for her, she needed rest to be able to take Dig on both mentally and physically.

Her mind kept flashing images of the sparks in Cole Thatcher’s eyes as he held up that damned calendar device. The man was obsessed, but she was beginning to understand it. She felt it, too. She wanted to be there with him – to solve the puzzle, that’s all. No other reason. Had he solved it without her? Or had he gone back to the Saintes to look after her boat as he’d promised?

Don’t be a fool, she thought. Did she really believe he could leave Dominica if he had discovered where the Surcouf was located?

For the second time since they’d landed, Dig’s satellite phone buzzed. The first time, she’d been struggling to keep up with his long strides and hadn’t heard a word of the conversation. This time when he answered, he said, “Yes. Mm-hm. All right.” She was not able to hear any of the caller’s side of the conversation. Dig pushed a button to end the call, and as he leaned forward to slide the phone back inside his coat pocket, he said, “Your father is home now.”

“What? They’ve already discharged him?”

“Seems so.”

“But I thought he was at death’s door.”

“Riley, you never know how it is with these things. Given his age, they may have sent him home so he’d be more comfortable if there was nothing more they could do for him.”

“I want to talk to his doctors.”

“In good time. Tomorrow.” He stretched his arm out to bare the watch on his wrist. “Or rather, later today. You get cleaned up, get some rest. I’ll come back in a few hours to take you to the hospital.”

The car turned into the familiar street and Riley felt her stomach churn. “I can walk in the morning. It’s not that far.”

“As you wish. I’d be happy to drive you if you want, but I don’t mean to intrude on your life.”

If she hadn’t been so tired, she would have laughed at that.

There were no inside lights visible when they pulled up in front of her father’s brick two-story townhouse, but the dim porch light was lit in the alcove at the top of the steps. As usual, the street was lined with parked cars – they hadn’t built garages in the late 1890’s when these row houses were built. Riley patted her shorts and realized she didn’t have her key with her.

As though he could read her thoughts, Dig said, “Mrs. Wright will let you in. Just tap on the door. She’s awake.”

She wondered how he could be so certain.

Dig reached across her and opened the door. “Hurry,” he said. “Or you’ll freeze.”

Riley climbed out of the car and her sneakers crunched on the thin layer of snow that covered the pavement. The frigid night air stung her bare skin like a thousand icy needles. She trotted across the sidewalk, opened the black iron gate, then rushed up the steps. As she was lifting her hand to knock on the door, she heard the sound of the lock turning, and the door swung open. Riley tilted her head back to look up at Eleanor Wright who filled the doorway in her flower-print robe, a white scarf tied round her head. Behind her the house loomed dark and silent. Weird, Riley thought. All Wright needed was a kerosene lamp in her hand, and she’d look like a king-sized version of the original residents of the house from the turn of the last century.

“Thanks for waiting up for me, Mrs. Wright,” Riley said as she stepped into the dark foyer and closed the door behind her. She stomped her feet on the front door mat and tried to remember where the light switch was.

The older woman looked her up and down in the dim light that shone through the windows from the street, frowning at the way Riley was dressed. She grunted, then turned away, and passed into the kitchen where she turned on a light. “There’s hot tea left in the pot there,” she said, “and you can warm the soup on the stove if you’re hungry.”

In the harsh kitchen fluorescent lights, the ancient appliances and the deeply etched butcher block counter tops were familiar in their shabbiness. Between her father’s postings, they had sometimes returned to Washington for a few months, and her father would allow the children into his personal domain. Her parents divorced after she joined the Corps, and since her mother had moved back to France, whenever Riley returned stateside, her father’s spare bedroom was hers. After her discharge, she had moved in for good.

The housekeeper lifted the heavy lid off a mammoth pot on the stove and swirled the contents with a ladle. Wright always seemed to cook enough to feed an army. She stood nearly half a foot taller than Riley and probably weighed twice what Riley did. She wore no make-up and her cheeks hung down in over-lapping jowls on either side of her thin pursed lips.

The woman had seemed like a godsend when she arrived. Riley had been advertising for a day nurse and the old battle axe had arrived at the door one day, saying she had a recommendation from one of her father’s old school friends. When Wright moved in, Riley was able to move out.

“Thank you, Mrs. Wright, but I’m not hungry. I just want to know about my father. What can you tell me about his condition?” Riley hugged the blanket tighter around her shoulders in spite of the oppressive heat in the house.

The older woman sighed and pressed the knuckles of her right fist into her hip. “You never call him and now you drop in and want to chat at nearly one in the morning? I don’t think so.” She started to turn toward the door.

Riley reached out and grabbed the woman’s arm through her robe. “I know you don’t think I’m much of a daughter, but he is my father. Do you have any idea what it’s like to get the news that your father has had a stroke? How is he? I can’t believe they’ve just sent him home from the hospital to die.”

Wright stared down at Riley’s hand on her arm, then looked up and locked gazes with her.

“Turns out he didn’t have a stroke after all.”

“What?”

 “Doctor said it was a problem with his sodium or some damn thing. He drinks too much water. Other than that, there’s been no change in your father’s condition.”

“But he,” Riley pointed toward the front door, “told me you’d been trying to reach me to tell me about the stroke.”

Wright turned and stared at the door for a moment, then shook her head. Turning back to face Riley, she said, “I was wrong, that’s all. Your father is still the same ornery son of a bitch who can’t remember who I am most days or how to find his own goddamn way to the bathroom.  Hasn’t left this house in months. Don’t know what they been telling you, but if that’s the only reason you came home, you can call that limo and head back down to the islands.” Eleanor Wright turned and lumbered out of the kitchen leaving Riley stunned, the blanket still draped over her shoulders.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

McLean, Virginia 

March 28, 2008

1:50 a.m.

Diggory leaned forward and gave the driver an address on Old Dominion in McLean, Virginia. It wasn’t far outside DC, but he would have enough time to sort through the information he had received and make plans. Back in the airport, he had been surprised when his sat phone rang shortly after landing. He realized then he would need to delay his plans.

He could tell from the echo on the line, they had him on speakerphone, but he didn’t know where they were calling from, nor who all was in the room. They asked about Caliban – said their man in Guadeloupe had gone missing. Beelzebub, the old politico, wanted to know if Dig knew anything about it. Dig, glancing past his shoulder at the blanket-clad girl shuffling beside him, kept to one word answers.

“When did you see him last?”

“Friday.”

“And everything was normal then?”

“Yes.”

“And the target. Has he found anything yet?”

“No.”

“You’ve been watching him?”

“Yes.”

“We’re going to have to consult the others. Our methods may have to change. We didn’t think the target had the potential to do damage, but if he is responsible for Caliban’s disappearance, you might have to take him out. Understood?”

“Yes.”

Dig knew what that meant. They had already called a meeting, and he knew where. Once, Dig had driven Yorick to this meeting place. That was ten years ago, but he doubted the location had changed. It was a small British pub not far from Langley, owned by a Bonesman. Because some, like Beelzebub, often had Secret Service escorts, they met early, well before daylight, when only the night shift workers and insomniacs might take note of the collection of limousines parked in the lot of a small pub.

There were twelve of them and they called themselves the Patriarchs. In fact, in Bonesman terms, they all became patriarchs upon graduation, including Diggory. This group, however, did not include every Bonesman. They were a highly selective inner circle of the most prominent and powerful men in the country, and at the pub where they met, there was a circular table with twelve chairs. Dig was determined to get a seat at that table. In ordinary circumstances, if anything could ever be considered ordinary for men like these, they would never include a son of a waitress among their ranks. Every man at the table could trace a bloodline to one of the most wealthy and powerful families in the country: Whitney, Harriman, Vanderbilt, Bush, Kellogg, Goodyear. But Dig did not intend to give them any choice.

He signaled the driver to pull over when they were a quarter mile short of the pub. He gave the man specific instructions and dismissed him, then climbed out of the car and shivered. The freezing night air penetrated the light jacket and khakis he had put on that morning aboard the barbarians’ boat. After dropping off Riley, there had been no time to swing by his apartment to change into warmer clothes – not if he expected to get there before them. And if he wanted to hear what they were planning, that was what he had to do.

The last time he’d traveled this way was in summer and the trees had been in full leaf. The country houses set back from the road had not been visible. Now the ground shone white in the moonlight and the houses looked cheapened by their nudity. He took long strides along the shoulder of the two-lane road, his breath puffing white, his shoulders hunched up against the cold. When he reached the small intersection and came upon the now empty strip mall, he recognized the old brick building. The night of his last visit came back to him.

He’d been sent to pick up the old man at the Capital Yacht Club down on the Potomac in the wee hours of the morning. Yorick and a pair of congressmen had been out sailing on the river all afternoon on a racing sloop that belonged to the president of a company that manufactured body armor. They had been enjoying the owner’s hospitality at the dock half the night.

Dig remembered the smell of alcohol on Yorick’s breath, the rosy glow of the man’s cheeks, the cell phone call that led him to say that they weren’t going home after all. Dig would never forget a word of it, including the conversation Yorick started from the backseat where he always sat.

“I knew your father, you know.”

Dig glanced up at the rear view mirror and saw the white-haired patrician watching him with his one good eye. “Yes sir,” he said. “You’ve mentioned that before.”

“I met him in school at Choate. We weren’t the same year, mind you. He was older, but I knew him by reputation. Everyone did. Good-looking fellow. He claimed to have set the record for the senior with the most notches on his bedpost. Produced the most bastards, too. He liked to go slumming. I suppose you’ve got quite a number of brothers and sisters swilling beer in Connecticut’s trailer parks.”

Diggory had said nothing, but he opened his right hand and one by one closed the fingers and squeezed.

The restaurant was on the ground floor of an older brick building that stood alone at the corner of a large asphalt parking lot. Dig remembered how they had driven around behind the building to a delivery access door. He cut through the parking lot alongside a hardware store, a chiropractor’s office, and a Chinese take-out, then kept to the shadows as he approached the back of the brick building. He checked the few parked cars, watched the roof line, and checked his watch: 2:10. The last time they hadn’t met until four, however, that didn’t mean there was no security at this hour.

After watching the building for twenty minutes, he decided it was safe to take the next step. He followed the power and communications lines that hung low where they crossed the street. An outside staircase offered him access to the second floor offices as well as the junction box. Twenty minutes after he had cut the phone lines, he left the hiding place in the trees where he had been waiting across the street. Cutting the wires had not triggered any silent alarms; no security had arrived.

The upstairs office windows opened onto the bleached wood gallery that surrounded the second floor. He extracted a pair of thin plastic gloves from his wallet, then, without making a sound, he began to move from window to window, checking them to see if any were unlatched. Wasn’t it always the way, he thought, when the last window he tried slid upward an eighth of an inch – enough to slide a credit card under it and turn the old fashioned latch. He pulled the window up and the warm air spilled out from inside.

The last door he had passed outside bore the name of an accounting firm, so he was surprised when he found himself inside what appeared to be a linen room. Shelves lined the walls covered with folded white napkins, tablecloths, chefs’ aprons, and kitchen towels. An antiquated time clock was affixed to one wall along with a large metal rack filled with cards and a cork bulletin board. The cigarette-burned table with several chairs round it took up most of the center of the room.

Dig had been hoping merely to get into one of the building’s offices. He hadn’t realized that the restaurant had any facilities on the second floor, but here he was in the staff break room. After closing and latching the window behind him, he crossed the room and peered out the door. The hallway was lit by a red glow that flowed up the stairs from the restaurant below. To his left, two doors led to what looked like bathrooms, though it was too dark to see if the doors were marked. On his right and across the hall, the third door opposite the top of the stairs, sported a plaque he could read in the dim red light: Office.

Dig stood listening. He heard the muffled whoosh as the fan started up in the building’s heating system, but nothing more. He stepped into the hall. The wood floor creaked as he crossed to the office and he winced. He was, he figured, directly over the kitchen. Better not be anyone down there preparing food for the upcoming day. He tried the office door. The doorknob barely budged and he cursed under his breath. He hadn’t brought any tools.

Then, through the door, he heard the noise of a car pulling up outside the back of the restaurant. The office must have windows overlooking the rear of the building, he thought. He glanced down the staircase into the pub. From that vantage point, he could see most of the interior of the restaurant – the gleaming mahogany bar with leather capped stools and the round table with twelve chairs.

He had to get inside the office. It would make a perfect vantage point for watching and listening. He jiggled the knob again. Then the heating system fan shut down, and the restaurant interior grew so quiet, Dig could hear his own breathing.

From outside, he heard men’s voices and the thunks of car doors slamming. The noise of a second and third car’s engines carried through the door.

Dig dashed across the hall back into the staff break room. He glanced at the window, and for a brief moment, he considered leaving the way he had come. The Patriarchs would not be pleased if they found him there.

No. Luck was on his side. He was sure of it. He started round the room, searching the shelves, patting down the linens, feeling under the table, examining the time clock. There had to be something there he could use. He moved to the bulletin board and grabbed one of the push pins. No, too short; it would never work. He let the pin fall to the floor when he heard the sound of a door opening below him, and he felt the air pressure in the building change. They were coming inside.

Then he saw it. One of the time cards had a folded sheet of paper affixed to it with a paper clip. He yanked the card out of its slot. The torn card and note fluttered to the ground, as he stepped into the hall.

The floorboard creaked and the voices downstairs ceased. Dig froze. They would send someone upstairs to check it out. Soon. He straightened the paperclip and felt the chill air roll up his sleeve as he straightened his arm to reach for the doorknob. He slipped the shaft of the paper clip into the lock on the old round door knob. The cold air reached the sweat-soaked fabric beneath his underarm and he shivered. He’d handled locks like this a hundred times during his years with the Company. He stilled his breathing, closed his eyes and jiggled the pick. With a soft click, he felt the lock give. He turned the knob, then lifted his foot and froze. They would be able to break in as easily as he did if he confirmed his presence to them. One creak meant it was an old building. Two and you knew you were not alone. Standing there balanced on one foot like a bloody flamingo, he realized he had no idea if the floor would creak again if he stepped into the office.

With a loud whoosh, the heating system started up again, and Dig slipped into the office without a sound, closing and locking the door behind him.